Legal Blog

The petition of the day is:
Ferrellgas Partners, L.P. v. Morgan-Larson, LLC
17-441
Issue: Whether, or in what circumstances, a plaintiff adequately pleads a “continuing violation” of the antitrust laws, sufficient to satisfy the statute of limitations, by alleging continuing sales during the limitations period when the alleged...

Former Oklahoma reserve sheriff’s deputy Robert Bates is free from prison but not out of the woods, with several months of supervision ahead and two civil rights lawsuits pending, the Tulsa World reports. Bates, 76, gained his early release Thursday after obtaining enough credits to...

After officials expressed fears of violence surrounding white nationalist Richard Spencer’s speech at the University of Florida on Thursday, the talk was derailed by chanting by protesters that persisted the entire time he was on stage, the Orlando Sentinel reports. He was booed, jeered, cursed...

The infamous “underwear bomber,” serving a life sentence in the Supermax federal prison in Florence, Co., is suing the federal government, the Denver Post reports. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who failed in a Christmas Day 2009 attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with a...

(Michael Williamson/The Washington Post)
An interesting Fourth Amendment issue has come up in debates over the reauthorization of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. This is the authority, some will recall, that allows the government to collect from inside the United States the contents...

In Texas v. White in 1869, Chief Justice Salmon Chase famously wrote for the Supreme Court that the “Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.” Chase’s opinion rejecting state secession may seem today like a foregone conclusion, an...

A federal judge denied former Maricopa County, Az., Sheriff Joe Arpaio’s request to vacate his criminal contempt conviction after he was pardoned by President Trump, the Arizona Republic reports. U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton said while Trump’s pardon “undoubtedly spared Defendant from any punishment that...

I realize this might make me sound curmudgeonly, but here’s what strikes me as a needless source of annoyance: Hold music with vocals.
I’m fine with being put on hold occasionally, but I want to be able to work effectively while I’m waiting. That’s considerably harder,...

Kansas City public defenders, like overburdened colleagues across Missouri, say they are facing a tough choice: Lose their law licenses, go to jail, or quit. Some 25 public defenders filled a courtroom Thursday to support Ruth Petsch, the head of the public defender’s Kansas City...

From Adam Bernstein, writing in The Post today:
James E. Clayton, a judge’s son who in 1960 became The Washington Post’s first full-time U.S. Supreme Court reporter and later wrote stinging editorials that helped deny federal judge G. Harrold Carswell a seat on the high court...